2019 Wines - Chapter 4 - Traminette

The critters got nearly all of the Traminette this year. I thought I had this row wrapped up really well with bird netting, but something got underneath the netting and found a buffet. I happened to go out on a Thursday evening and picked some 25# of grapes which looked ripe. Of course, Thursday is band night, so I didn't have any time to process the grapes. My intention was to pick the rest two days later, on Saturday. So I put these grapes in a holding pattern in the fridge.

It's a good thing I got some grapes on Thursday, because by Saturday two days later there was not a single Traminette left in the row.  So, this year's Traminette harvest is a little down compared to last, which is fine, as this may turn out to be mainly a blender.

On Saturday we destemmed, crushed, pressed, and made the following typical additions:

50ppm SO2
235g sugar to get SG from 1.076 to 1.090
3t calcium carbonate to get pH from 2.86 to 3.07
2g Booster Blanc
4g Opti White
1.5t pectic

One day cold settle, rewarmed, then 2.5g QA 23 with usual rehydration and step feeding protocol. I somewhat impulsively added 1/2t tannin the next day, then back to protocol with 3g bentonite on day 3. By September 7 it was down to 1.022 and was racked to carboy. It has this nasty brownish color. Again. Like last year. Fortunately last year it cleared up completely so I'm not as concerned about it. Maybe Traminette just has an ugly duckling phase.